The Harper’s Magazine associates have had their eyes on America and its moneyed rulers for a combined nine decades. In a bookstore conversation about the latest issue of Lapham’s Quarterly, they name the forces conspiring to drive the nation into another age of upheaval.

A 25-year-old fast food worker from the Brownsville section of Brooklyn went on record in the newspaper of record to say that life earning just above minimum wage is not desirable for herself or her children.

Trying to sort out the status of Obamacare can be tricky thanks to our dysfunctional leadership class; Republican state Sen. Marty Golden wants to teach Brooklyn’s women “the art of feminine presence”; meanwhile, a group of Mormons quits the church in a mass ceremony in Utah. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Maurice Sendak, a man whose imagination helped generations of children discover their own, “who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche,” has died at 83 of complications from a recent stroke.

The Occupy Our Homes campaign kicked off last Tuesday when hundreds of people, including activists, neighborhood residents and a couple of City Council members, marched through a neglected Brooklyn neighborhood to open a foreclosed house to a homeless family.

As the biography on his website reads, funk/soul/R&B singer and songwriter Charles Bradley is “no stranger to hard times.” Raised on the streets of Brooklyn, Bradley lived much of his life as an itinerant cook and part-time musician before suffering the death of his brother by gunshot. (more)

With Hurricane Irene bearing down on the East Coast, New York City and state officials have ordered a mandatory evacuation of 250,000 people in flood-susceptible communities and announced plans to shut down much of the coastal region’s transit system, including subways, by noon Saturday. (more)

In this case, the writing is actually on the wall: Brooklyn-based artist Sebastian Errazuriz turned his shock over hearing that the number of U.S. troops who committed suicide in 2009 doubled the toll ... (continued)

Carl Paladino has made a joke of the New York governor’s race, but on Sunday the tea party candidate showed he could be hateful as well. Speaking to a group of Orthodox Jews just days after it was reported that two teenagers and an adult were tortured nearby in the Bronx for being gay, Paladino said children should not be “brainwashed” into thinking homosexuality is “equally valid.” (continued)

One of the best things about living in New York City has to be the public transportation—that is, except for days like Wednesday, when storms pummeled the city, damaging buildings, causing widespread flooding and displacing thousands of commuters.

Emboldened by its decision to outlaw the “N-word,” the New York City Council is now setting its sights on another slur: bitch. According to The New York Times, this latest semantic crusade, headed up by Brooklyn Councilwoman Darlene Mealy, is drawing supporters who think the word falls squarely within the bounds of hate speech. Detractors believe it can be used with benign—even affectionate—inflections.